


The Silent Bell

by Northern_Lady



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Abuse, Awkwardness, F/M, Flashbacks, Geeks, Hiding Scars, Hurt/Comfort, One Shot, Past Child Abuse, Rescue, Scars, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-10-25 23:54:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17735066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Northern_Lady/pseuds/Northern_Lady
Summary: FP is reminded of a high school relationship and realizes he still has feelings for her and that she still needs his help.





	The Silent Bell

FP Jones never liked it when he had to go to the high school for these kinds of meetings. Jughead was in trouble again and he had to go and straighten it out. At least that was what he assumed was going on. All he knew was that the school receptionist Mrs Bell had called and asked him to come in for a meeting with Weatherbee. He could imagine that whatever was going on probably wasn’t good. 

FP went through the main doors of the school and stopped in the reception area at Mrs Bell’s desk. He had seen the woman a few times before during earlier visits to the school and had avoided talking to her. He had known back in high school when she attended Riverdale High for a couple of years before she moved to Greendale. It seemed like it was better to just let the past be past especially since she was married now. Her husband, a man raised in Centerville, was the owner and manager of Bell’s Supermarket where everyone in Riverdale did their grocery shopping. She heard FP enter and glanced up as she brushed a strand of her ash brown hair out of her eyes and pushed her glasses up from the edge of her nose where they had slid down. 

“Mr Weatherbee will be ready for you in about five minutes. You can take a seat over there,” she nodded towards a row of chairs. 

He went to the row of chairs and took a seat. FP took out his cell phone just to keep busy but was soon distracted not by the phone but by the behavior of Mrs Bell. Doris Bell has always been a distraction anyway. She was too pretty, with her fair freckled skin and bright blue eyes to not be a distraction in at least a cute sort of way. She had always been like that. This time though the woman was frazzled. She got up from her office chair and opened a file cabinet. She searched all the drawers three times before finding the file she wanted. She then proceeded to drop the file on the floor and spill the contents everywhere. She somehow managed to spill her water bottle from the desk onto the floor. Then the phone rang and the woman just about jumped out of her skin. It wasn’t the school landline. It was a pink cell phone on her desk. Doris let the phone ring a few times and watched it warily before finally picking it up. 

“Hello….I’m fine, I just got busy….well, I don’t want to go….You’re outside right now?.... I told you already, I can’t go to lunch right now. I’m working...no, don’t bother Mr Weatherbee about it. We can have lunch some other time...you don’t need to come in here…” she told her caller, then with a sigh she put down her phone. 

Mrs Bell worked frantically to clean up the mess she had made and moments later Anthony Bell marched into the reception area. Tony Bell was a large muscular man who had been a butcher before he had been a grocer. He wore khaki pants and a blue polo shirt with the Supermarket logo on it. His height of six foot four dwarfed his petite wife’s five foot frame. 

“Doris,” Tony said rather forcefully. “Come on, we’re going to lunch.” 

“I told you Tony, I can’t…” 

Tony leaned over the desk in an intimidating manner. “We still need to talk about that other thing, so you get yourself a lunch break before I start getting angry.” 

Tears in her eyes, Doris got up and grabbed her jacket. “Fine, I’ll just apologize to Weatherbee later.” 

FP watched her leave with concern. A few minutes passed and Weatherbee came out of his office and invited FP in. The meeting was good news, not bad. Jughead had won a journalism award and as a result was being awarded a small scholarship. FP needed to sign papers to accept the scholarship. A half an hour later he was finishing up and headed back out into reception to find Doris Bell returning to her desk. The woman had been recently crying and her makeup on her left cheekbone was caked on. It hid the color of her cheek but not the swelling. 

“You okay?” FP asked, in spite of it being none of his business. 

“Yeah, I’m…” She started to say and then trailed off. 

FP moves to leave. He couldn’t very well help someone who didn’t want to be helped. He had very nearly reached the door and then he turned back, unable to live with the idea of just letting this go. “Did he hit you?” He asked her plainly. 

Her eyes met his and she bit her lip. “Yes.” She managed to reply. 

“That wasn’t the first time either, was it?” 

“No, but what can I do? I don’t have any family I can go stay with. This job is part time. I have hardly any money. There’s no place I can go and if I try he’ll just follow me there.” 

“What about that women’s shelter in Centerville?” FP suggested. 

“His mother runs the place,” Doris said, defeated. 

“Look, I know I know we haven’t kept in touch but if you need a place to go, come and see me at Sunnyside. I don’t have much but Jug and I could make space for a while until you get on your feet.” 

“Thanks I...I appreciate the offer…” she said, “But I can’t.” 

“If you change your mind you know where to find me.” he offered. It was all he could do. 

***

It four days before FP heard anything about Doris Bell again. He did wonder on occasion if she were okay but he had plenty of other things to occupy his thoughts as well. 

“Three of us at Riverdale are getting scholarship awards. One in Science, one in Social Studies, and mine in Journalism. There’s an informal award ceremony at the end of the week. I just hope that Weatherbee can get through the ceremony without botching it up. He has been a mess since Mrs Bell has been in the hospital.” Jughead said over his bowl of cereal. 

“Mrs Bell is in the hospital?” FP found that he was more concerned than he had expected. “What happened?” 

“I don’t know,” Jughead said, a little curious over his Dad’s reaction, “Only that she has been out for two days.” 

FP shook his head. Then he got to his feet and reached for his serpent jacket. 

“Where are you going?”Jug asked. 

“To the hospital. I’m gonna find out what happened to Doris,” FP explained. 

“To Doris?” Jug sounded surprised. “I didn’t know you were friends with her.” 

“I knew her in high school. She went to Riverdale for a couple of years before she moved to Greendale. Back then she was Doris Walters. If her husband laid a finger on her…” FP didn’t finish the though he just put on his jacket. 

Jughead got up and took his own jacket off a hook. “I could come with you. Mrs Bell is always nice to me. Maybe I should see if she is okay too. You think Mr Bell hits her?” 

“I know it. I saw the bruise myself last week. I should have done something about it then. I should have done something a long time ago. I’ll be damned if I’m gonna break another promise to her.” 

“Sounds like there’s a story to that,” Jug said as he followed his father out the door. “What happened?” 

“I’ll tell you on the way,” FP told him. 

***

Doris Walters had been an awkward sophmore. Being in his junior year at Riverdale FP was too cool to be bothered with geeky awkward girls. He already attracted the attention of some of the more popular girls as it was. Not the rich ones but the more normal good looking girls were interested in the leather wearing southside serpent enough that he never had to seek out a date. In spite of having the full attention of Alice as well as several other girls if he got bored of her, somehow he found himself taking notice of Doris Walters more often than he was willing to admit. 

Doris Walters wore a black and blue checked flannel scarf around her neck. She wore it every day to school, without fail. It didn’t matter if her clothes matched the scarf or not, she still wore it. On fall morning during his junior year FP was grabbing some stuff out of his locker and caught sight of Doris across the hall doing the same. She grabbed her stuff, slammed the door shut, turned and ran straight into Penelope Blossom spilling the coffee Penelope carried all over her white blouse. 

“You stupid little half-witted trollop!” Penelope spat out insults easily. “I’ll never get the stains out. If you want to ruin my clothes it’s only fair that I ruin yours.” Penelope tore the blue and black checked scarf from Doris neck. She proceeded to grab a pair of scissors from out of her locker and cut the scarf to shreds. She turned to Doris and gave her a handful of scraps. Then walked away. 

Doris stood there staring at the scraps in her hands with tears on her face and FP understood for the first time why she wore that scarf. There was a scar on her neck. An unsightly jagged scar. It was no birthmark and was not a clean enough cut to be a surgical scar. In the meantime, Doris looked like she wanted to die. With a sigh he reached into his locker and took out a brown plaid flannel scarf. He crossed the hall and without a word went to Doris and wrapped the scarf around her neck. She looked up at him with a gratefulness in her eyes like he had never seen before. He’d never had the chance to play the hero before. He was always the bad boy. This was his first time being the knight in shining armor. He had to admit that he liked it. 

“Thank you,” Doris said, emotion in her tone. 

On instinct FP reached over and brushed away her tears with his thumb. “Don’t let her make you cry. She doesn’t deserve that much power.” 

Doris watched him go with awe on her face. After that, FP was aware that Doris had a crush on him. She kept her distance. She was too shy to ever approach a guy and he was okay with that. He was still dating Alice after all. That didn’t mean he wasn’t aware that Doris watched him from time to time. 

It was after he had broken up with Alice that he found Doris under the bleachers by the football field crying. He didn’t hesitate to go under there and find out what was wrong. The lighting was dim and once he got in there he could see her sitting on the ground hugging her knees, just sobbing. 

“Doris?” he asked and when she didn’t respond he took a seat next to her.”You okay?” 

She sniffled and shook her head. 

“What’s going on?” he prodded. 

“You’re not going to believe this but...I haven’t eaten in four days,” she said, no longer crying, just listless. 

That was not the answer he had been expecting but looking at her now he realized she was extremely thin and always had been. “Why not? You don’t need to diet or anything?” 

She gave him a look. “It’s not that. My step dad keeps spending all his money on heroin. I don’t even have lunch money. I never do.” 

FP reached in his pocket and pulled out a ten dollar bill and passed it to her. In the other pocket he had a ziplock bag of cookies that his mom had given him that morning. She took the cookies and ate very quickly. When she was finished she once again looked at him like he was some sort of hero but this time it worried him. It worried him because he knew he probably couldn’t save her this time. He couldn’t make her step dad stop using heroin. He couldn’t pay for her to eat three meals a day. He couldn’t do much of anything at all except call the police and hope they handled it. Maybe Doris had already tried that herself. 

“What can I do to help?” he finally asked. “You need someone to call the police?” 

“I did that twice. They never found any heroin. He passed all his drug tests, charmed the social worker into believing everything was fine. And after it was over he broke three of my ribs. I can’t go through that again. I can’t.” 

FP felt sick. “Is that where the scar on your neck came from? From your step father?” 

She nodded, sniffling. “I was four and he was high. It was acid or something instead of heroin that time. He thought I had swallowed my mom’s diamond ring and that he had to get it back to buy drugs with. So he cut me open...I barely survived.” 

“Have you got any other family? Someone else you could run away to?” he asked her concerned. 

“I have a grandfather in Greendale. He’d let me stay but my mom won’t let me go.” 

“Then we need to get proof for the social worker so your mom will have to let you go,” FP suggested. 

“We? You’ll help me do it?” she asked him. 

FP nodded his agreement. “Yeah. I’ll help. I’m gonna need a reason to be at your house. You could tell your mom that I’m your boyfriend. We'll figure out a way that no one can hurt you again. I promise. ” 

It took almost two weeks to get the proof they needed. The got pictures and tape recordings and old medical records. Everything was in place to make the call after school that day. FP had made arrangements for Doris to stay with his family for a couple of days until the investigation was over. Doris was sitting outside watching football practice though when two police officers approached the field. FP saw that they were going to talk to her and went to her just in time to hear the words, “car accident,” and “passed away,” and “condolences.” 

Doris nearly collapsed by the time FP reached her side. He caught her and kept her from falling. Fred was approaching too. Doris didn’t have the strength to stand and was clinging to FP just to stay upright. He picked her up and carried her to Fred’s truck. Fred gave them both a ride back to the Jones house. FP carried Doris to his room, sat down on his bed, and held her for a long while as she just wept. Eventually her tears ended and she rested against him exhausted. Once again FP brushed away her tears with his hand and then he untied the scarf around her neck and let his fingers touch the scar. It was Doris who kissed him but FP kissed her willingly in return. He wanted to comfort her. This was the only way he knew. 

Two weeks later Doris moved in with her Aunt in Greendale. FP never spent much time with her after that but he never forgot that one night. 

***

FP and Jughead entered Doris hospital room to find her awake and coughing. 

“FP?” she said as she managed to end her coughing. 

“Hi Doris,” He took a chair at her bedside and Jughead took one closer to the wall out of her line of sight. “I heard you were here. I thought I’d come and check in.” 

She nodded. “Pneumonia,” she explained. “It started as a little cold and then turned into this thing that was trying to kill me.” 

“I really thought I was gonna come here and find that Tony had put you here,” FP said sadly. 

Doris bit her lip in response to that. “He’s not as bad as my stepdad was.” 

“Not as bad?” FP asked, emotion in his tone. 

“I know...I know that sounds terrible but I’ve never had any broken bones and Tony owns a supermarket so I always have food.” 

FP wanted to shake some sense into her as much as he wanted to cry. He did neither. “That’s why you married him?” 

“I spent my entire childhood starved. It’s why I have hardly any immune system now. People get married for lots of shallow reasons. For popularity, for money, for status...I just wanted to know I wouldn’t have to have aching hunger like that ever again. If I couldn’t have love, I at least needed that.” 

FP reached over and took her hand. “Why couldn’t you have both?” 

She burst into tears at that question. “Because look at me! I will never have the grace of Hermione Lodge or the confidence of Alice Cooper. I’m not beautiful or rich and I bungle up everything I try to do. My health is terrible so I can’t count on always being able to keep a job. I just wanted to not have to starve. I don’t expect anything else.” 

FP pulled his chair a little closer to the bed and touched her cheek which was still bruised. “You deserve better. No one should be giving you bruises. I don’t care how much food he has in the cupboard. It doesn’t give him the right to lay a finger on you.” 

“You were always so nice to me, FP,” she said, her voice breaking a little as she leaned into his touch. 

“And me being nice to you was never enough. I couldn’t fix everything even though I wanted to. Things are different now. I can do more. All you have to do is let me.” 

“I wish I could. I wish I could go back to that night when my grandpa died. Two those two weeks before I moved to Greendale. They were the only time in my life that…” she trailed off and didn’t finish whatever she had meant to say. 

“The only time that what?” he asked sincerely. 

“The only time that I was ever treated gently....and sometimes I wish that...but life happens and I have to accept what is,” she sobbed. “I’m sorry. I’m feverish and probably not thinking clearly.” 

He knew enough to read between the lines even if she was just feverishly spilling her guts. “What are you saying?” FP knew it was probably none of his business but he had cared about her once and apparently he still did. He needed to know. “Are you saying that your husband hurts you even in bed?” 

“Always…” she whispered with a sigh as if she were relieved to finally tell someone. 

“And when you recover and get released from the hospital you’re gonna go back to him?” 

She shook her head. “I’m not gonna recover. I’m done.” 

“What? The docs said you’ll be fine in a few days.” 

“It doesn’t matter. I’m done FP. I’m done.” 

“Look, if you’re talking about killing yourself I’m not gonna let you do it,” he said firmly. 

“It’s already too late. It’s already done. All we need is time now.” 

FP bit back the frantic feeling in his gut. “What did you do?” 

“I got hold of some poison. If I had known you were coming to see me I might have waited a little longer to take it just so I could see you for a while. Doesn’t matter though. Everything will be okay soon.” 

“What kind of poison did you take?” Maybe it wasn’t too late to save her. She just needed to tell him what she’d taken. 

She reached over and squeezed his hand, delirious. “It’s so nice that you always try to save me.” 

“What kind of poison did you take?” he asked her more firmly, then he turned to Jug. “Go get one of the nurses. Maybe they can still help her.” 

“No...no don’t help me. I don’t want to go back.” 

“You’re not going back. We’re gonna get that poison out of you and then you’re gonna come stay with me. I’m not giving you a choice in that. It’s for your own good,” he told her. 

Jughead and two nurses returned. Doris was wheeled away to the Operating Room to have her stomach pumped. 

***

A week later FP brought Doris from the hospital to Sunnyside. Tony Bell had very nearly punched FP in the face on being informed that his wife wasn’t coming home but had instead walked away and let his wife go. 

She spent most of the afternoon and evening listlessly watching TV. After Jughead went to bed FP took a seat next to her on the sofa. 

“What am I supposed to do now?” she asked, speaking for the first time all day. “I was supposed to be dead…” 

“I know, and you agreed to go therapy to work through all that. In the meantime, just...relax…” he reached over and put an arm around her shoulders. 

Doris leaned into him and turned just enough to rest her head on his shoulder. She was hugging him so FP put his other arm around her and hugged her in return. 

“What I meant was...I don’t expect you keep me here forever...and I...I have muscle loss and immune system problems from all the malnutrition when I was a kid...I can barely hold a job most of the time...so I don’t know where I am gonna go except back to Tony and….I don’t want to go back…” she hugged him a little more firmly. 

“You’re not going back,” FP told her. “You can stay here. You can stay long term or until you find a situation you like better.” 

“That’s not going to happen. I’m not saying that as a pessimist. It’s just, there was never a place I wanted to be more than right here.” 

He didn’t know what to say. He moved his hand and untied the scarf she wore around her neck, letting his fingers rest on the mostly faded scar. And this time, he kissed her first.


End file.
